Jackass Lawmakers Against Dimbulb Activist Judges

Friday, April 13th, 2012

Or vice-versa, maybe…well whatever. Sometimes, when a maelstrom develops at the intersection of two dysfunctional elements, when it all settles down the result is a correct decision.

The California Supreme Court says employers are under no obligation to ensure that workers take legally mandated lunch and rest breaks.

The ruling Thursday comes after worker’s attorneys argued that abuses are routine and widespread when companies aren’t required to issue direct orders to take breaks.

But the high court sided with business when it ruled that requiring companies to order breaks is unmanageable and that those decisions should be left to workers.

“Unmanageable” is an understatement. This is a classic case of one of my most bitter complaints about government, the non-producers telling the producers how to produce. There’s still a widespread lack of understanding about how bad the problem can get, when the non-producers do so after having spent lifetimes not doing anything productive…as is the case here. They start to lose track of where rule-making can & cannot be effective, and drift toward futile things like repealing the law of gravity.

The court, on the other hand, just going by this brief summary has engaged in classic judicial activism. Maybe when time permits I’ll find something in the complete decision that changes my view of that. For now, my sense is they have reached the correct decision by the wrong means.

I’m seeing some things around p. 33 that pose problems for that view, though.

Hohnbaum contends that an employer has one additional obligation: to ensure that employees do no work during meal periods. He places principal reliance on a series of DLSE opinion letters. In 2001, in the course of discussing rest breaks, the DLSE distinguished an employer‟s meal break duties and observed that for meal breaks “an employer has an affirmative obligation to ensure that workers are actually relieved of all duty, not performing any work, and free to leave the worksite . . . .” In 2002, the DLSE reiterated the point:
with regard to meal periods, “an employer has an affirmative obligation to ensure that workers are actually relieved of all duty, not performing any work, and free to leave the worksite…” In 2002, the DLSE reiterated the point: with regard to meal periods, “an employer has an affirmative obligation to ensure that workers are actually relieved of all duty, not performing any work, and…free to leave the employer‟s premises.” …

We are not persuaded. The difficulty with the view that an employer must ensure no work is done—i.e., prohibit work—is that it lacks any textual basis in the wage order or statute. While at one time the IWC‟s wage orders contained language clearly imposing on employers a duty to prevent their employees from working during meal periods, we have found no order in the last half-century continuing that obligation. Indeed, the obligation to ensure employees do no work may in some instances be inconsistent with the fundamental employer obligations associated with a meal break: to relieve the employee of all duty and relinquish any employer control over the employee and how he or she spends the time.

This implies that the phrase “requiring companies to order breaks is unmanageable” may have been in error; the above excerpt is quibbling about what the law does & does not say, which would be a much more proper function. I’ll have to go over it at beer o’clock tonight to see if I approve.

There’s no way I can be unhappy with the result of the decision, though. This is the very worst part of California lawmaking methodology — yes, the rest of the nation is watching us because we’re California, but I cannot help but think the rest of the nation has been laughing at this. How idiotic. How heavy-handed, how Gestapo-ish. And how utterly, utterly, unrealistic; at no point could it ever have been said there were fewer so-called “workers” doing their working six hours without a break, after the rules were put in place (or re-interpreted) than there were before.

A precarious situation has resulted for us — the business climate situation, apart from being generally hostile which is plenty bad enough, has resulted in an over-saturation in our commercial districts of the multi-state operations. By this, I mean brand names that are based in California as well as in other states. (And by “over-saturation” what I really mean is, an under-saturation of all the other kind; they’ve pulled up stakes and moved out because they simply can’t afford the nonsense.) The problem with the tax base relying overly much on these part-in, part-out leviathans is that they don’t need to move out to move out. They simply decide to expand this office & not that one.

One can close one’s eyes and hear the incredulity in their board rooms. “Now, waitaminnit…in our California offices, we have to supervise the employees and make sure…what???”

Maybe the justices of the California State Supreme Court deserve more credit than I gave ‘em. We’ll find out when time permits.

This is THE problem with the permanent political class — they assume that everyone is just like them.

That is: That everyone is a kiss-ass lickspittle who is good at taking tests, winning forensics tournaments, and telling teacher the things she likes to hear on midterm exams. If such a person were to start a business (eeeeeewwww!!!)…. well, why wouldn’t there be a staggered lunch break that requires everyone to drop all of his/her work, deadlines and consequences be damned, and go out for a nice vegan quiche? After all, the employees are only there because they weren’t smart enough to go to Princeton and network with senators’ kids; they should eat when we tell them to eat, Gaia-damn-it. If the facts don’t fit the theory, it’s because those who are subject to the so-called “facts” just don’t see it from the proper perspective. More diversity training is needed.

Used to be that people entered public service unwillingly, at the urging of their peers, on the condition that they could step down whenever X problem — specific, definable, measurable — was solved. I’m not sure I buy this Cincinnatus myth, but it sure the hell beats the current model (in which nobodies who couldn’t get a date in high school mandate that prom queens everywhere should put out for them for the sake of “social justice”).

Yeah, the more I hear about this and the more I recollect about it, I think I might have been too tough on the SCOCA. I think there was some legal beagle at the state level who read a memorandum from Department of Labor, interpreted it funny, sometime back in ’04…and that’s where all the lunacy started.

Still this does precious little to dissuade from your solution, Mr. Fader. Lunatics running the asylum.